Clean Your Dyson Animal Vacuum

I'm pretty sure that this whole post I will have to spellcheck a few times. If I needed to spell vacuum at a spelling bee, I would definitely fail. Thank God for automatic spellcheck! This post is a mix of a few different blogs and videos that I saw on how to clean your Dyson. I, personally, have the Dyson Animal. It's a great vacuum, but it certainly needed some TLC recently. You know how the filter/tube thing in the middle gets dust bunnies caught in it? Yeah, that was mine. It was pretty much just one giant dust bunny.

This specific model seems to be different to clean than most, but here is the video that I referenced in order to get my Dyson cleaned. 

I ended up taking my vacuum pretty much all the way apart looking for the top filter, which, by the way, I never found. However, my vacuum was cleaned even more thoroughly as I used a screwdriver and cleaned everything. And, I mean everything. 

Start by taking off the canister by pressing the button up to unlock and remove. I'm including a lot of pictures to be sure I remember for the next time I have to clean my vacuum. :)

Be sure to remove it either in the garbage or in the sink so it can be easily cleaned up. 

Here is where I went too far; I unscrewed the top of my vacuum cleaner just looking for that top filter. A filter that couldn't be found. 

However, because of removing the top, I was able to clean the nasty inside of my vacuum in a different way than recommend in the video (seriously, all I would've had to do was poor water in and dump it out over and over. But, not me, I decided to unscrew the whole thing. Smarty pants that I am.)

 See? Filthy. Notice that stick in the middle? That's important when re-assembling your vacuum cleaner, it is the doohicky that opens the canister.

Start cleaning that nastiness out by just letting the water run through it. Again, this was the longer version - all you really have to do is lift up the part that's not the canister and fill it with water and dump it over and over, as per the directions in the video above.

Look how much prettier it is all cleaned out!

Once that is done, put the filter-y looking thing that the canister sits in under the water and rinse that out, using a scrub brush, if you'd like.

And, I went so far as to clean out the top of the vacuum cleaner - the part that I unscrewed. 

This next part (which I actually did halfway through the cleaning process of the top of the vacuum,) is simple and exactly as described on the vacuum and in the video. Remove the other filter. (I only found one to remove.) First, fully extend and lay flat your vacuum.

This is where you remove the filter (this is the right side of the vacuum if you are standing with the rollers (AKA the sucky part) facing you).

Look at that there filter!

To clean this, all you do is put the sponge part under the water and then squeeze it. Repeat until the water squeezed out is clear. Then put the sponge holder under the water and rinse, again, rinsing until the water flowing through the holder is clear.

Use a washcloth or clorox wipe and wipe down the rest of the vacuum and then, let it all dry for 24 hours. I laid it in the sun to be sure it would be completely dry. But, before I did that, I took a picture. Look how clean and pretty my vacuum pieces are now. (That little purple piece there to the right of the picture is a little piece that broke off, but not to worry - it has not made my vacuum work any less, thankfully.)

And there you have it. Cleaning your Dyson animal. PS - this blog post is mainly for my benefit so that I remember how to clean my vacuum next time I go to do it! :)

Refinishing and Refreshing Your Wood Furniture

A little note to my readers: Every week, I have a goal to do at least 3 blog posts in that week. I have been falling behind on this goal far too frequently, as of late, so my goal is going to change. My goal is to write at least two blog posts a week. I planned on picking days, but I'm not going to just because my schedule with the littles is unpredictable. Thank you, dear readers, for coming back and continuing to read my posts despite their inconsistency. And with that, on with the blog!

A while back, I wrote about removing water rings from your wood furniture. Today, I'm gonna cover the next step of that. My wood cabinets and tables look worn. They look rugged and a little warped. They've needed to be refreshed and an extra measure of TLC and I finally managed to do so. See that worn look?

It wasn't hard. It took very little time, but it just wasn't my top priority.  I had recently bought a large container of coconut oil from Costco and since I had it on hand and just saw this handy little tip on Pinterest, I tried it out. You can check it out here.

This was so simple. Seriously. It couldn't have been easier - take a little coconut oil on a rag and buff your wood furniture. 

Before the coconut oil

After the coconut oil

This took very little time and my cupboards and tables looked amazing. Here is an after picture of the cupboard. Isn't it amazing, the difference?

I did this a few weeks ago and looking at the cupboards now, they still look quite nice. I think a good buffing every 6 months will be plenty. There you have it - tried and true and working great. 

Removing Water Rings

"Please use a coaster!" I remember hearing that a lot when I was little. My mom would always tell us that if we weren't careful we'd leave rings on her table. The funny thing is, I don't recall ever seeing rings on any tables. My little non-observant eyes failed me in noticing such things, I suppose. As I've gotten older and my "mom eyes" (or maybe it's just "grown up eyes") have kicked in, I am far more aware of the effects of condensation from hot mugs or cold drinks on my oh-so precious wooden furniture. Unfortunately, I don't always catch the condensated (is that even a word??) drinks before they have been left on my furniture. And my furniture reminds me of it...sadly. Thankfully we are in luck!! I have discovered a simple solution, to see the solution, go here.

Here it is...the dreaded ring.

This ring has been here for months and months. A very long time. So the likelihood of it going away seemed very slim, but I gave it a try just the same.

I had my blow dryer on full blast high heat for a good amount of time. I'm thankful for the picture proof, because otherwise I think I may have been unsure if it was actually fading. This next picture was taken about 15 minutes in. Not a significant change, but it was starting.

I had to leave the blow dryer on for a good 30 minutes and I moved it around so it would distribute the heat on that spot more evenly. Cade enjoyed it as he grabbed different toys and experimented with whether the blow dryer would be able to blow the items off of the table. This provided a good amount of entertainment for both of us, which was good since it took so long. As you can see from the picture below, there was still a faint water ring, but after refinishing the table with coconut oil (posting about this soon!), it was completely gone. I think that the faint water ring was actually just where the wood had dried out a bit.

Once the table was buffed, I couldn't find the water ring easily. Here it is, all shined and beautified. I'd say this was a Pinterest success!!

Cleaning Your Stovetop

My stovetop looks gross so much of the time; dried on food splatters that are really hard to get off, boil-overs that leave an unsightly brown speckled covering around the burners. Just ugly. So, I tried something I saw on Pinterest. Unfortunately, not all things that are tried on Pinterest are successes. I would not count this as a success. I suppose I shouldn't warn you prior to reading the rest of this blog for fear that you will stop at this point - but I'd hate to get your hopes up for nothing.

Photo from Pinterest

I tried to go to the blog to read the instructions, but the morticianswife's blog is private, so I had to go with the description given on the pin:

Photo from Pinterest

I did my best to follow these directions, but it didn't work wonderfully for my stove. Here is a picture of the burners prior to cleaning.

During the cleaning process, I had areas full of peroxide with little baking soda and other areas with pretty much just baking soda...maybe my house is lopsided...anyway, it wasn't easy to get the right formula amount to clean the burners by each burner. (Did that sentence make sense??)

Prior to adding the peroxide

After adding the peroxide, I let it set for a few minutes and then tried to clean it all up. It didn't work as wonderfully as I would've liked. My burners may have been a bit cleaner, but they now had residue from the leftover baking soda wedged into the crevices that I couldn't get into. Below is the, rather fuzzy, after picture of the stove. The burners were a bit cleaner, but with the bakings soda residue, I'd say it wasn't worth it. My husband started wondering if there was something wrong with our stove as he was seeing white stuff in the burners...he didn't know I had "cleaned" them. So, yeah, maybe with a different kind of stovetop this cleaning method would work better. Or, maybe if I had understood the directions a little more clearly? I don't know. But, with the stovetop that we have plus my post-pregnancy, can't-think-too-hard, going-on-little-sleep brain, it wasn't awesome. 

Removing Permanent Markers From Clothing

First thing's first: Happy 1 year anniversary to my blog!! One year ago on the 1st, I was starting my Pinterest Test and here we are, a year later, still going strong! My original goal had been to do at least three posts a week and ended up averaging more like one with being pregnant and having a baby and all. But, I think I'm finally getting the hang of it....maybe. So, this year, I will strive for three posts a week!

The other day, as I was labeling all of our wrapped Christmas presents, I not-so-smartly gave my son a sharpie to "help" make the labels. In the process of doing so, he managed to mark up my sweatshirt I got as a memento when I saw the show "Wicked." It's a fantastic show, and my mom spoiled me with this gift. Anyway, much to my dismay, I ended up with blue ink on my nice grey sweatshirt. 

Sad day!

Thankfully, a friend of mine posted this image on Facebook just as I was about to burst into tears. It's like they knew I needed it! I looked up the image on Pinterest to see if I could find more details, but it was, again, just an image (at least the one I looked at.) So, I gave it a try. 

Photo from Pinterest

I got my handy-dandy hand sanitizer out and I put it on the stained spot on my shirt. 

I scrubbed quite a bit, but before I had even washed the sweatshirt (other than with a good dousing of hand-sanitizer) the stain was coming out. I should mention, I did not wash the shirt before using the hand-sanitizer, hoping that the stain wouldn't set, so that may have helped my cause.

After I scrubbed the sanitizer in and noticed the stain was gone, I threw my sweatshirt in the wash. Out it came with just the tiniest spot of blue on it. I can handle that. Overall, I'd call this test a success. Now I know hand-sanitizer removes permanent marker mostly (if not all the way with a bit more scrubbing) from clothing. There you have it. The more you know. :) Happy New Year!!

Also, a quick survey: is there anything you'd like to see in my blog? Anything you'd rather I didn't write about? Are you interested in guest-posting for my blog? Is there anything you'd like to see me try to make? I'm looking for tips, feedback and all that sort of thing. I'm happy just challenging myself to keep writing it, but if you are reading this and have some feedback, I'd love to hear it. :) 

Dusting Blinds

I remember hearing a tip a while back about cleaning your blinds using some knit gloves. You know the ones I'm speaking of, you can get them very cheap in the fall and winter and they usually come in sets of three. Anyway, now that I want to find this tip I am at a loss! So, I can't give credit where it might be due. Either way, I didn't come up with this idea on my own, but I tried it today and below is my review of this system. Warning and confession: I rarely dust my blinds so they were very icky and I am humbling myself enough to show it here. Eek!

Here it is, the creeper hand about to go to work on the filthy, dirty, dusty blinds. I started out with one glove and just ran my fingers through the blinds while they were closed.

I tried doing multiple slats at a time, but that proved to be a bit of a challenge if I actually wanted to get all the dust off. So, I went back to the top and bottom side of each slat. This was a daunting task and not very much fun.

Gross, right? But, as you can see it was working. I discovered it actually worked better to run the glove through the blinds when they were open, so I switched to that rather quickly, with much better success.

Another creeper hand picture. Kinda makes me feel like singing "sometimes I feel like, somebody's watching me..." the level of creepiness factor for this picture is over the top for me. A car outside, black gloves peering through the blinds. Yeah...this is definitely a good Halloween post. HA!

I then decided to add the other glove so as to take on double duty and see if I could finish faster. I have 3 very large blinds in my living room, so it wasn't a quick cleaning. It felt like it took way too long. It was better once I was using two gloves, but still. Boring.

The next picture truly shows the uber-grossness factor of how well the dusting worked. My window ledge was NASTY afterward. I would not recommend doing this unless you are planning to vacuum right afterward.

EWWWWWWW!! But, yay for clean blinds!

So, my review is as follows: the dusting works better (and faster) with two gloves, it still left a little trace of dust on the blinds (static and such, I'd assume). I went over it with the wand on my vacuum for finishing touches and that worked wonderfully. This is something I will keep in my cleaning arsenal, although, as you can tell, the likelihood that I will use it again is slim since I don't clean my blinds nearly often enough and we will probably move before they are cleaned again. Ridiculous, I know.

After trying to relocate the article I read that recommended this (again, to no avail), I discovered there are some things that may have made this work a little better and that I will try in the future...you know...if I clean my blinds ever again. One, instead of gloves, try using a dryer sheet - it's supposed to help keep the dust on the sheet instead of spreading over the blinds as much. And two, if you do use the glove (or an old sock), dip it in equal parts distilled vinegar and water to actually clean them and not just dust them. I also saw a recommendation to use a lint roller on closed blinds to remove dust and dirt. I may have to try this as well...

Happy cleaning!

How To Clean Candle Jars

You know when you get a really pretty candle jar with a super awesome smelling candle inside that is just done. It can't be used anymore, the wick is burnt out and there is nothing left but the drags of candle wax. Oh, what a sad day that used to be for me. Have you ever wished you didn't have to throw out that pretty candle jar afterward? Or, maybe you were like me and you just hoped you'd figure out a way to get out the drags of wax left at the bottom of the jar and put it on a shelf to be forgotten for months and months until you eventually found it again and just gave up and threw it away. Thankfully, this may have only happened to me once or twice as my mom showed me how to clean out candle jars many years ago. Thank God for moms, right? But, recently, while doing my random look-see on Pinterest, I came across an article on how to clean out candle jars in a way I had not tried. I wondered if it was quicker or easier than my mom's way (which, by the way, was either to put boiling hot water in and let it set for a while and then use a butter knife to remove the now-pliable candle or put an ice cube in and wait for the candle wax to break a little more easily.)

The method I found on Pinterest was actually a combination of my mom's methods. You can check it out here.

Photo from Pinterest

To be honest, I didn't clean my jar out first. I didn't read that step. Skip step one? How could that happen? My pregnancy brain must've taken over...

My jars actually had far more candle left in them than I think most people's would, but I knew I wouldn't use them, so I wanted to just get rid of the wax.

Anyway, I boiled some water and filled my candle jars up.

After sitting for a few minutes, some of the wax began to rise, but really only in the pink candle.

Doesn't that look cool?? Then I added a few ice cubes. The link above didn't explain how long to let anything set before putting in the ice cubes, so I just waited about 5-10 minutes. I was afraid if I put the ice in too soon, the whole jar would crack due to the heat and cool at the same time. The 5-10 minute wait seemed to do the trick.

After the ice was put in, more of the candle wax floated to the top. In fact, so much of it did that it created a semi-seal of candle wax on the top of the jar and I had to re-break the wax in order to drain the water so I could remove the wax. It was kinda neat.

After it was drained, I used a butter knife and the wax that had been floating came out very easily. And it worked very well!

The white candle is the perfect example, though, for those who would want to do this with a jar that had very little wax left in it. As you can see, the wax floated to the top rather easily and it took no effort to remove it from the jar.

Looky there! Three nice, clean, new-looking candle jars! Ready for some kind of artsy-ness to be applied to them. So, what's the benefit of using this method rather than my mom's method? I believe it's a bit quicker. Mixing the two methods my mom gave me seemed to do the trick and get the jars cleaned out much faster than one method over the other. I like this tip. I'm gonna use it again.

EDITOR'S NOTE: So...I just learned a trick I liked way better than this Pinterest test method. A friend of mine mentioned sticking your candle jars in the freezer and the wax will just pop right out. So, I gave it a try. It was amazing!! I put my candle jar in the freezer right before going to bed for the night and when I took it out in the morning, there was no fuss/no muss. It was incredible! I'd say go this route if you aren't in a big hurry to get the wax out. It may work more quickly than it did for me - I'm really not sure how long it needed to be in the freezer. But, still...incredible!!

Voila!